My prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,030,297, issued Apr. 17, 1962 and U.S. Pat. 3,152,063, issued Oct. 6, 1963 disclose coal hydrogenation processes and set forth the general conditions of temperature, pressure and time under which coal can be hydrogenated to produce oil and gas. In the processes of these patents, reactions between coal and hydrogen were carried out in the presence or absence of catalysts. At higher temperatures, catalysts were found to have relatively small effect. The products from these processes were generally light liquid hydrocarbons and gaseous hydrocarbons which were mixed with the hydrogen used to hydrogenate the coal. My U.S Pat. No. 3,762,773, issued Oct. 2, 1973, discloses a method and apparatus for feeding finely divided solids such as coal, to a pressurized gas or gas-liquid-solid system without loss of gas pressure from the pressurized system.
The process of the present invention recognizes the need for a low sulfur, heavy oil which can be economically produced from naturally-occurring, solid carbonaceous materials, such as the large bituminous coal deposits which exist in the United States and other portions of the Western World. The present invention modifies my prior coal hydrogenation processes in such way as to meet this low recognized need.